College bound: Mission High School students beat the odds

Mission High School students Jonathan Spencer, Cindy Braki, Cedric Bowser and Jerome Pusung leaped over hurdles to get into college and receive the San Francisco School Alliance’s Maisin Scholar Award.

When I meet Jonathan Spencer, a charming, personable 18-year-old with a wide smile, he is giddy. Spencer is graduating from San Francisco’s Mission High School in a few days and he’s only months away from starting California State University, East Bay, in Hayward.

Jonathan Spencer is the first in his family to go to college.

“I’m going to college,” says Spencer, who plays football and looks as if he should play football. “It feels good to say I’m going to college! I’ve got bragging rights because I’m going to college. It’s like I’m actually doing something after high school. I’m not just staying at home. I’m not working at McDonald’s. No way. I’m going to college.”

Spencer isn’t only going to college. He’s also one of 75 San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) senior students who received the Maisin Scholar Award, which provides $1,500 a year for four years to help pay for college.

Created by the San Francisco School Alliance in 1998, the scholarship supports economically disadvantaged students demonstrating an unwavering commitment to education. These are kids who have lived in foster homes, on the streets, and in gang-ridden neighborhoods and who are on track to graduate from high school and continue their education. The award targets students whose overall GPAs range between a 2.0 and a 3.0. Many applicants’ GPAs fluctuated during their four years in high school; maybe a student had a 4.0 when living in a stable foster home and below a 2.0 in an unstable one. </

“When you come from the hood,” says Sonya Brunswick, Maisin Award program coordinator, “you have to survive and you must have the creative ability to maneuver around obstacles if you want to succeed. Some of these kids have to worry about where to find food and a place to sleep after school. They have to learn how to avoid gangs. They might have to figure out how to take care of their siblings and get their homework done. These kids don’t realize it but they’re acquiring skills through their everyday lives. These kids are phenomenal multitaskers and they know how to work hard.”

Jonathan Spencer (right) and his friend Cedric Bowser (left) are both going to Cal State, East Bay, and receiving financial help through the Maisin Scholarship.

Spencer is the first in his family to go to college, and I ask him if he’s surprised that he’ll be moving into a dorm in August. He tells me he figured he wouldn’t even graduate from high school at times. And then he shares details from his life and I realize that I’m not talking to a typical college-bound high school senior. I’m talking to a highly determined, resilient teenager who has overcome more obstacles than anyone should ever have to face.

When Spencer was entering the ninth grade, his dad was released from prison after a sentence for drug dealing. At the time, Spencer was living with his mom and three sisters in Stockton. He constantly fought with his mom, and so she forced him to move to San Francisco where his dad had found an apartment in the Tenderloin.

Spencer and his dad didn’t last long in San Francisco. They moved to Brisbane, Oakland, Richmond, and dozens of other places throughout the Bay Area. Spencer started sleeping on friends’ couches and moved back with his mom for awhile. His dad eventually remarried and settled down, but he didn’t have time or room in his house for Spencer.

“It had gotten to the point where I didn’t know where I was going to sleep at night,” Spencer says. “I used to bring a duffel bag to school because I didn’t really have a place to leave my clothes.”

Jonathan Spencer is proud to say he’s graduating from Mission High.

Through all of this Mission High School was the only constant in Spencer’s life. He enrolled at this school of some 900 students on Dolores Avenue in the second semester of ninth grade after he first moved to San Francisco. He commuted by Bart when he was living in the East Bay. At Mission, Spencer found the support he needed.

“It’s my family,” Spencer says. “It’s like my home. People actually want to see me here. If I need someone to talk to, there’s always someone there. I can go to Mr. Guthertz the principal or Mr. Javitch my adviser or Mr. Albano the J.V. football coach. These people helped me get through the tough times.”

Daniel Javitch, who has taught English at Mission for 10 years, won’t take any credit for Spencer’s success. “He did this on his own,” Javitch says. “You could put Jonathan anywhere and he would succeed. He’s that kind of kid. He’s strong-willed and determined. He throws himself into everything he does. I have watched him completely turn himself around.”

When Spencer started out at Mission, his grade point average was well below a 3.0. Last semester, while living with the family of a school friend, his GPA shot up to a 3.63 and he’s taking scads of AP classes and playing varsity football.

Mission High School: Sending kids to college

Left to right: Jerome Pusung, Cindy Braki, Jonathan Spencer, and Cedric Bowser are all college bound.

Twenty percent of Mission’s high school seniors met the requirements to attend a CSU or UC college in 2003. This year, Mission principal Eric Guthertz says nearly 50 percent of seniors qualify and 60 percent of all African-American students are eligible. These numbers are higher than last year’s California state averages. In 2007-2008, 32.8 percent of all seniors attending a state public school met UC and CSU requirements; 22.5 percent of African-Americans were eligible.

The school’s college acceptance rates are also climbing. In 2007, 62 percent of graduating students went to a UC, CSU, or community college, while in 2002 only 32 percent continued their education after high school. The numbers aren’t available yet for this year’s graduating class but Guthertz is excited to share that one student has a full ride to Georgetown and another to Barnard College.

“I attribute the increase in college acceptance to our focus on rigor, academic achievement, coupled with our small school design, personalization, and individualized attention and equity,” says Eric Guthertz, the Mission principal.

More scholarship money goes to Mission students than to any other high school in the city–at least that’s what Guthertz thinks is the case. “It’s well into the millions,” he says. Eleven of the Maisin scholars came from Mission; more kids received the award at Mission than at any other school in the district.

Why is this all so surprising? Nearly 60 percent of Mission students qualify for free or reduced lunch, meaning they come from low-income families, according to SFUSD statistics for fall 2007-08. Some 42 percent are identified as English language learners, and 14 percent special education. “We’re known for getting a lot of underdog students,” says Daniel Javitch, an English teacher and student adviser. “But if you walk inside the school you would never know this. You wouldn’t notice kids hanging out in the halls. You would see kids focused and learning in the classrooms. This is a very academic environment.”

Cindy Braki: On her way to Spelman College

Mission High senior Cindy Braki wears a golden-colored satin blouse on the day I meet her. She’s dressed up because she’s attending a Maisin Award ceremony later that day, and she looks beautiful. But what’s most noticeable is her happy glow. Braki can’t stop smiling. She seems utterly ecstatic, and she should be. She has what every 18-year-old wants: an invitation to attend a top college, a bundle of scholarships, and a proud mother.

In my conversation with Braki, I quickly realize that she’s warm, friendly, well-spoken, and, quite humble. Braki mentions to me that she’s president of the Black Student Union. Javitch, her adviser, later says to me, “I’ve been at Mission 10 years and we’ve never had a more active BSU. Cindy is always concerned about how effective the BSU meetings are, and she strives to act as a positive role model for other students.”

Braki nonchalantly says she helped design the curriculum for a Pan-African Studies class, which helps students connect their personal lives to the history of the African diaspora. Javitch says she actually thought up the idea for the class and approached teachers with it.

This fall Braki will start Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, Georgia. Eighty percent of her tuition will be covered by federal financial aid and scholarships, including the Maisin.

Braki leaped over many hurdles to reach this point. She moved from one dysfunctional household to another and until recently she had never lived with someone who provided her with what the typical kid needs: support, guidance, love, a home-cooked meal, a ride to school, or simply a reminder that it might be a good idea to go to school.

Braki enrolled in Mission in the 10th grade. Due to her home life it’s no surprise that she went through periods when she was truant and didn’t care about getting a high school diploma or a college education. She developed a close relationship with Linda Martley-Jordan, who monitors attendance at Mission. Martley-Jordan, who lives in Oakland and has worked at the school since 2006, contacts parents and guardians of students that are not attending school on a daily basis. As she crosses the Bay Bridge every morning to get to work, she calls dozens of kids to tell them to get out of bed and get to school.

“Cindy was one of those students who always came into my office just to talk,” Martley-Jordan says. “She needed someone to talk to.”

When Braki didn’t come to school for several days in the 11th grade, the attendance liaison became concerned and picked up the phone.

“She answers,” Martley-Jordan says. “I say, ‘Where are you?’ She says, ‘I’m in L.A.’ ‘What are you doing in L.A.?’ I ask. It turns out she had returned a pair of tennis shoes to buy a ticket to run away to L.A.”

In Los Angeles, Braki had found a foster family–merely a place to sleep–through an agency, but she wasn’t going to school. Braki regularly phoned Martley-Jordan, who encouraged the teen to attend school in L.A. Martley-Jordan also started talking with a friend, who had taken in several foster children, about providing Braki with a home.

And then on the phone one day Braki asked Martley-Jordan, “Will you be my foster mom?”

“I was like woah!” Martley-Jordan says. “I had to think about that for awhile. I told her I would get back to her.”

Martley-Jordan talked it over with her coworkers, her friends, her minister, Dr. Gillette O. James of Beth Eden Baptist Church in Oakland. In these conversations she realized that if she provided Braki with a stable home, the young woman’s talents would be unlimited.

“I called her,” Martley-Jordan says, “And I said, ‘Ok, I will be your foster mom but here are the rules: 1) We will go to church; 2) There will be no TV during the week; and 3) I’m doing this so you can go to college and become a young woman with a career and help make the world a better place.'”

Braki remained in Los Angeles for several months and took classes from morning until night. When she returned to San Francisco and moved in with Martley-Jordan, she had enough credits to start her senior year.

“I’m so proud of her,” Martley-Jordan says. Braki smiles when she hears those words.

Cedric Bowser: Starting at Cal State, East Bay

Cedric Bowser is the first in his family to go to college.

When I ask Mission principal Eric Guthertz about Cedric Bowser he says, “That kid is smart.” And when I actually meet Bowser, a sweet, handsome 17-year-old senior, he rattles off a list of all the AP and honors courses he has taken. He tells me that he likes reading “literature” and that the Scarlet Letter is his favorite book. I’m impressed.

But what impresses me even more about Bowser are the stories I hear about him helping others. His former adviser Daniel Javitch tells me Bowser once noticed that another African-American student was falling behind in math. “He talked to the teachers and said we need to do something to help this student,” Javitch says. “Cedric helped tutor the kid.”

Bowser has put his people skills to use as a conflict mediator in Mission’s Peer Resource program. “He’s really good at making students feel silly about getting into bad situations without being condescending,” says Jennifer Colker, who has worked as a peer resource teacher at Mission for two years. “Last week he ran into my office to tell me that something just went down in a classroom and he used his conflict mediation skills to diffuse the situation. He was so excited about the fact that he had stopped a physical fight from breaking out.”

Bowser’s mom struggled with a bad drug habit and only weeks after she gave birth to her son at San Francisco General Hospital, she was incarcerated. He moved in with his grandparents and lived with them until his grandfather died on December 26, 2001. He’ll never forget the date because he and his grandfather were close.

“During my childhood, one of the few people who ever took interest in me was my grandfather,” Bowser says. “He was one of the few people who told me they loved me.”

Bowser is eager to tell me about a more recent influential character in his life: Javitch. Bowser took Javitch’s AP honors English class his junior year. “He’s one of those teachers who is there 100 percent for the kids,” Bowser says. “He wasn’t only there for us during school but after school. He gave us his phone number and if we had a question at night when we were doing our homework we could call him.”

When Bowser learned about getting the Maisin scholarship, Javitch was one of the first people he told. “He wasn’t that surprised,” Bowser says. “He knew I would get it. He always believed in me even when I was too stupid to believe in myself.”

Jerome Pusung: Going to San Diego State

Jerome Pusung plays varsity basketball and football.

For 18-year-old Jerome Pusung the Maisin scholarship–as well as a handful of other scholarship–came as a huge relief. When he received an acceptance to San Diego State, he didn’t know how he would ever afford it.

Pusung’s mom works as a housekeeper at a Hilton hotel downtown and his dad mans the front desk at another hotel. His older brother attends San Francisco City College and hoped to transfer to a four-year school soon. His parents certainly couldn’t help with tuition for two college students. When Pusung got into college his brother offered to give up on his own dream of going to a four-year school, but now both brothers can go.

Pusung was born in the Philippines. When he was 6-years-old he immigrated to the United States with his mom. His father was working in Saudi Arabia as a construction worker at the time.

Pusung grew up on a block of the Mission District where drug dealers and gang members hung out. He says he was often afraid to walk outside his house and he was always conscientious not to wear certain colors that might provoke gangs. Yet despite living in a rough neighborhood, Pusung’s resume is full of accomplishments. He’s an ambassador at the De Young Museum and leads kids on tours of the museum. He attended a summer program at Brown University, and last year he received the Herb Blanchard Award, given each year by SFUSD to one male varsity basketball player who exhibits unselfishness, perseverance, sportsmanship, team spirit, and citizenship.

Jerome Pusung started at Mission as a freshman.

“I had Jerome playing center on the basketball team and he’s only 6 foot 1–that’s short for a center,” says Arnold Zelaya, the dean of students, head varsity basketball coach, and assistant football coach. “But Jermone gave it everything he’s got and he made All City-Second Team. He would do anything for the success of the team. He’s going to soar in college.”

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Jonathan Spencer plans to major in criminal justice at Cal State, East Bay. “I have a lot of family who are on the wrong side of the law and their lives ended up badly. I want to be an FBI agent,” he says. “I think I could make a difference.” Jerome Pusung also hopes to get into a field devoted to crime prevention. “I know that other youth in my community are being influenced by gangs, drugs, hopelessness,” he says. “I want to help those children.”

Cedric Bowser plans to major in psychology and minor in quantum physics. “I’m not all that good at physics but I love it. Also, I’ve been told one of my gifts in life is being able to mediate situations and so that’s why I think psychology might be good.”

What about Cindy Braki? She’s good at math so that’s what she plans to major in, and she hopes to return to Mission High as a math teacher some day. “This is my family,” Braki says. “I’d like to come back here and give back to the school what it gave to me.”

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